522 
UNIFORM SYSTEM OF NOTATION. 
the case, the hardest and most elastic 
substances producing no more effects 
upon a beam, than any soft inelastic 
body of equal weight. Various other 
conclusions of much practical as well as 
theoretical importance are stated in the 
above paper, and the results are sever- 
ally borne out by an elaborate and care- 
ful series of experiments. 
Our Foreign Associatie, Mons. 
Q,uetelet, has presented to us a sketch 
of the progress and actual state 
of the Mathematical and Physical 
Sciences in Belgium, of interest, not only 
from the information it conveys, but 
likewise as the contribution of a distin- 
guished foreigner, who had evinced al- 
ready his respect for this Association 
by attending one of its meetings. The 
appearance of this Report, together with 
that published in the preceding volume 
by Professor Rogers, of Philadelphi, on 
the Geology of North America, I re- 
gard as a new proof of our prosperity. 
It shows that the Association has begun 
to exert an influence over the progress 
of Science, extending even beyond the 
sphere which by its name of British, it 
claims for its own, and that it has enlis- 
ted in its behalf the sympathies, not only 
of our Transatlantic brethren, who speak 
the same language, and boast of a com- 
mon extraction, but likewise of those 
Continental nations, from whom we 
had so long been severed. 
On the subject of Chemistry, our 
transactions of this year contain only a 
short report by Dr. T>irner, explanatory 
of the sentiments of the members of the 
Committee which had been appointed 
the preceding year, to consider whether 
or not it would be possible to recommend 
some uniform system of Notation, which, 
coming forward under the sanction of 
the most distinguished British chemists, 
might obtain universal recognition. In 
the discussion which took place Vv'hen 
this subject was brought before us at 
Dublin, three systems of Notation were 
proposed, differing one from the other, 
no less in principle, than in the end 
proposed by their adoption; — the first 
was that suggested by the venerable 
founder of the Atomic Theor)'’, Dr. Dal- 
ton, who aimed at expressing by his 
mode of notation not merely the 
number of atoms of each ingredient 
which unite to form a given com- 
pound, but likewise the very mode 
of their union, the supposed col- 
location of the different atoms re- | 
spectively one to the other, He pro- || 
posed, therefore a sort of pictorial repre- j; 
sentation of each compound which he I 
specified, just as in the infancy of wri- ji 
ting, each substance was indecated ; not | 
by an arbitrary character, but -by a sign 
bearing some remote resemblance to i 
the object itself. This, therefore, may ' 
be denominated the Hieroglyphical 
mode of Chemical Notation ; it was of 
great use in the infancy of the Atomic i 
Theory, in familiarizing the minds of |j 
men of science to the mode in which 
combinations take place, and thus paved 
a more ready way to the reception of ' 
this important doctrine. Even now, it 
may have its advantages in conveying 'i 
to the mind of a learner, a clearer notion 
of the number and relation of the ele- i 
ments of a compound body one to the 
otlier ; and in those which consist only of j 
two or three elements; a symbolic repre- ;i 
sentation after Dr. Dalton’s j)lan might || 
be nearly as concise as any other. But it | 
would be difficult, consistently with bre- f 
vity, to e.\ press in this manner any of I 
those more complicated combinations ]|l 
that meet us in every stage of modern j 
chemical inquiry, as for instance, in the 
compoundsof Cyanogen, or in proximate 
principles of organic life, j 
The second mode of Notation is that j 
in which the method adopted in Alge- 
bra is applied to meet the purposes of 
Chemistry. This method, whilst it is j 
recommended by its greater persjiicuity, 
and by its being intelligible to all edu- 
cated persons, has the advantage also 
of involving no hypothesis, and being j 
equally available by persons who may I 
have taken up the most opposite views 
of the collocation of the several atoms, | 
or who dismiss the question as altoge- I 
ther foreign to their consideration. This j 
therefore, may 1 e compared to th® j 
alphabetical mode of writing in use [ 
amongst all civilized nations ; the cha- i 
racters indeed may differ, the words for- I 
med by a combination of these charac- ' 
ters may be very various, but the prin- 
ciples on which they are put together 
to express certain sounds and ideas are ' 
in all countries the sam&. j 
The third method of Notation, which I 
has been recommended by the authority J 
of several greatContinental chemists, and j 
especially of Berzelius, resembles rather j 
a system of shorthand than one of ordi- 
nary writing ; its express object being | 
